Several people have reported an issue in which iMessage service is not working properly on iPhone, iPod Touch and/or iPad. For instance, iMessage doesn’t send or receive messages.
How to resolve this problem:
Turn off and on (restart) your iOS device (press and hold the Sleep/Wake button for a few seconds, then slide the slider.)
If restarting doesn’t fix it:
It has been reported that changing your DNS settings fixes this issue. To change DNS servers, follow these instructions for iOS devices (iPhone, iPod touch, iPad):
- Tap Settings
- Tap Wi-Fi on the left-hand side
- Tap the blue arrow next to your current Wi-Fi network
- Tap the “DNS” field and enter the DNS servers; 8.8.8.8 (Google’s Public DNS). For more information about Google’s public DNS, please see this: http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/
Nicholas on 
Lawrence Alonzo on 
rickyc on 
Carnghamcats on 
Deb Santagata on 
MARK on 
Shafqat Zaman on 
AppleID:( on 
April 11, 2012 at 6:10 PM
Both myself and my partner have iPhones. I’m on a 4S she has my old 3GS. Since we both updated to 5.1 iMessage doesn’t work, anyone I know who hasn’t upgraded past 5.0, iMessage still works. Any ideas. Auto time update is on, on both handsets, it’s strange as it was working for a few days after the update then it suddenly stopped one afternoon and hasn’t worked since.
April 11, 2012 at 9:57 PM
this helped me if the guy u text has a mark like this ! means it has went
April 12, 2012 at 1:38 AM
My imessage says Could not sign in . please check your network connection and try again but my safari and everything else works except for facetime and imessage . i have tried everything but still nothing happens . help me out here !
April 13, 2012 at 4:37 AM
Hi, not the same problem, but doesn anyone know why the imessage option is not available at all ? when going into settings, messages, i just see MMS/SMS settings ?
Thank you.
April 13, 2012 at 2:59 PM
Kay well it still doesn’t work. And whenever I turn iMessage on an error occured
April 18, 2012 at 9:31 PM
my messages on my iPod will work at school but when i get home it works occasionally but most of the time i can’t send anything. i gan go on google and the app store and bomb… but not messages
April 19, 2012 at 1:03 PM
Mine was turned off. I know I didn’t do that so it must have defaulted to off with the update.
April 24, 2012 at 7:39 PM
Turning my phone off and then on again always works to get imessaging back. It seems to switch itself off and on randomly
April 19, 2012 at 11:27 PM
entered the alternative DNS server address and got somebody to text me from thier 4s and at last received it! i was able to send imessages but the reply i never got although the persons phone said it was delivered, all ok now though at least at the moment
April 27, 2012 at 5:34 PM
Omg thank you so much doing this worked!!! I got a new iPod the other day and couldn’t get into iMessage or facetime but now i can so thanks sooooo much!!!!
April 30, 2012 at 5:48 PM
I had the iPad 2 and my iMessages worked great, but since I got the iPad 3, it does not work. When I type in someone’s name it puts up red highlight and ! and then I type message but it won’t light up send…so I can’t send message. I’ve tried off/on and reset…neither has worked. Any other suggestions?
May 2, 2012 at 11:17 AM
Hi instead of clicking on iMessage go to your contacts and click on the person you want to send your message to and click on share contact and finally click message.
May 1, 2012 at 8:46 AM
Go to settings, message, click on learn more under iMessage, login apple ID again
May 2, 2012 at 7:50 PM
There is not a log in option when I go there ……
May 6, 2012 at 7:06 PM
Thanks. Changing the DNS to 8.8.8.8 worked for me. Do we know why this problem occurs? It was working fine with the old settings previously.
May 9, 2012 at 12:18 PM
Hi both my wife and I have iPhone 4′s and are using software 5.1 but iMessage does not work between our phones even though we have no problem using it with other iPhones.any suggestions would be really helpful